Algae Troubles

[Tako_Poke]

Bat stars usually eat stuff they find on the bottom of the ocean, I can't remember if they eat algae, but they might...

Turban snails will probably help with the algae problem.

Sea hares (Aplysia californica) release purple ink, and sea cucumbers release their "guts". Sea hares may be ok, but they are pretty delicate and if they die, they will affect your water chemistry. I wouldn't recommend them unless you can get your tank temperature 68 or under...

Sea cucumbers eat detritus, and are more delicate than sea hares, so I wouldn't recommend them for your tank either, plus they don't eat algae.

Not all sea stars eat bivalves...

Good luck, it is probably related to your tank cycling and remember some algae is good.

Bat stars do eat algae, as well as other stars and worms. Ive always wanted a sea star in my aquarium, but they are hard to find here. Are they abundant in your tidepools? Also sea hares really arent that fragile or at least the ones I keep. Yesterday I had one really messed up by my filter but it recovered pretty good. However I found out that californian sea hares can grow up to 16 inches! So im not sure if they would fit your tank.

 

[marineboy]

many species in my tank will eventually grow to big but I will just release them at that point. I come by sea stars pretty often since I know where to look.

bad/good news, im being forced to buy a chiller in this heat wave...I found the tank at 82 degrees one afternoon when I was out for only a couple hours. I rushed to chill it down and was lucky to suffer no losses.
But im not going to wait and let it happen again.

~Michael

 

[DHyslop]

Michael,

Have you tried setting up a fan over the open top of the aquarium? Try that a while before shelling out big bucks for a chiller.

1 gallon of water evaporating = 7000 BTU of cooling

 

[marineboy]

Its to hard to angle a fan over the tank with having it fall into the drink...

chiller sounds needed to and freezing all this stuff every day just to cool off the tank for a little is becoming tiring...

 

[DHyslop]

Look for a fan that has a clip so you can mount it to the rim of the tank.

A couple weeks ago we had a big heatwave here. I checked the temp one afternoon and it was 86 degrees! I ran to Walmart, put two small (30 watt) fans on the tank, and it was under 80 by the time I went to bed. Now that's fast! The fans were $8 each. A chiller would have been hundreds (and really noisy!).

Dan

 

[Paradox]

I use a 10 dollar wallmart fan.. drops 75 gallon volume 4-5 degrees.

Youll probably want some auto-top off though for evaporation

 

[Paradox]

Also, the algae you are mentioning may be diatoms..Which is a normal part of the cycling process and takes a while to burn out. can you describe it more? Is it just a thin layer or is it sludgey or hair?

 

[marineboy]

its a thick orange sludgy substance thats all over the walls of the tank. scrubbing and getting replacement water sounds a little much so I think I will just get a bat star and a fan.

(sorry for repost so late I was on vacation for a while)

 

[William Tyson]

it may be a form of cyano bacteria, i have had the orangish red variety

 

[cthulhu77]

phosphate level????